The Choice (8 page)

Kevin, for one. Most evenings, he swung by for a little while, and he’d even stayed over last weekend, after his customary round of golf, of course. Kevin adored golf. They’d also gone out to three dinners and two movies and had spent part of Sunday afternoon at the beach, and a couple of days ago, while sitting on the couch, he’d slipped off her shoes while they were sipping wine.

“What are you doing?”

“I figured you’d like your feet rubbed. I’ll bet they’re sore after spending all day standing.”

“I should rinse them off first.”

“I don’t care if they’re clean. And besides, I like to look at your toes. You’ve got cute toes.”

“You don’t have a secret foot fetish, do you?”

“Not at all. Well, I’m crazy about your feet,” he said, beginning to tickle them, and she tugged her foot away, laughing. A moment later, they were kissing passionately, and when he lay beside her afterward, he told her how much he loved her. By the way he was talking, she kind of got the impression that she should consider moving in with him.

Which was good. It was the closest he’d come to talking about their future, but . . .

But what? That’s what it always came down to, wasn’t it? Was living together a step toward the future or just a way to continue the present? Did she really need him to propose? She thought about it. Well . . .
yes.
But not until he was ready. Which led, of course, to questions that had begun to creep into her thoughts whenever they were together: When would he be ready? Would he ever be ready? And, of course, Why wasn’t he ready to marry her?

Was it wrong to want to get married instead of simply live with him? Lord knows she wasn’t even sure about that anymore. It’s like some people grew up knowing they’d be married by a certain age, and it happened just the way they planned; others knew they wouldn’t for a while and moved in with the ones they loved, and that worked fine, too. Sometimes, she felt she was the only one without a clear plan; for her, marriage had always been a vague idea, something that would just . . . happen. And it would. Right?

Thinking about this stuff gave her a headache. What she really wanted to do was sit outside on the deck with a glass of wine and forget everything for a while. But Travis Parker was on his back deck, flipping through a magazine, and that just wouldn’t do. So she was stuck inside on a Thursday night again.

She wished Kevin weren’t working late so they could do something together. He had a late meeting with a dentist who was opening an office and thus needed all sorts of insurance. That wasn’t so bad—she knew he was dedicated to building the business—but he was heading off with his dad to Myrtle Beach for a convention first thing in the morning, and she wouldn’t have a chance to see him until next Wednesday, which meant she’d have to spend even more time cooped up like a chicken. Kevin’s dad had started one of the largest insurance brokerages in eastern North Carolina, and Kevin was taking on more responsibility with every passing year at their office in Morehead City while his dad edged closer to retirement. Sometimes she wondered what that must have been like—having a career path already charted from the time he could walk—but she supposed there were worse things, especially since the business was successful. Despite the whiff of nepotism, it wasn’t as if Kevin didn’t earn his way; his dad spent fewer than twenty hours a week in the office these days, which usually left Kevin working closer to sixty. With almost thirty employees, management problems were endless, but Kevin had a knack for dealing with people. At least, that’s what a few of them had told her at the company Christmas party both times she’d gone.

Yes, she was proud of him, but it still left her stuck inside on nights like this, which seemed like a waste. Maybe she should just head over to Atlantic Beach, where she could drink a glass of wine and watch the sun go down. For a moment, she considered doing just that. Then she decided against it. It was okay to be alone at home, but the thought of drinking at the beach alone made her feel like a loser. People would think she didn’t have a single friend in the world, which wasn’t true. She had lots of friends. It just happened that none of them was within a hundred miles of here, and the realization didn’t make her feel much better.

If she brought the dog, though . . . now, that was different. That was a perfectly ordinary thing to do, even healthy. It had taken a few days and most of the painkillers she’d had in her medicine cabinet, but the soreness of the first workout had finally passed. She hadn’t returned to the Body Pump class again—people in there were obviously masochists—but she had started to keep a fairly regular routine at the gym. For the last few days, anyway. She’d gone on both Monday and Wednesday, and she was determined to make time to go tomorrow as well.

She got up from the couch and turned off the television. Molly wasn’t around, and guessing she was in the garage, she headed that way. The door to the garage was propped open, and when she walked in and turned on the light, the first thing she noticed was the collection of wiggling, whining furballs surrounding her. Gabby called out to her; a moment later, however, she began to scream.

Travis had just gone into the kitchen to pull a chicken breast from the refrigerator when he heard the sudden, frantic pounding on his door.

“Dr. Parker? . . . Travis? . . . Are you in there?”

It took only an instant to recognize the voice as Gabby’s. When he opened the door, her face was pale and terrified.

“You’ve got to come.” Gabby gasped. “Molly’s in trouble.”

Travis reacted on instinct; as Gabby began racing back to her house, he retrieved a medical bag from behind the passenger seat in the truck, the one he used for the occasional livestock call that required him to treat animals on farms. His father had always stressed the importance of keeping it fully stocked with anything he might need, and Travis had taken the message to heart. By then, Gabby was almost at her door, and she left it open, disappearing into the house. Travis followed a moment later and spotted her in the kitchen, near the open door that led to the garage.

“She’s panting and vomiting,” she said as he hurried to her side. “And . . . something’s hanging out of her.” Travis took in the scene instantly, recognizing the prolapsed uterus and hoping he wasn’t too late.

“Let me wash my hands,” he said quickly. He scrubbed his hands briskly at the kitchen sink, going on as he scrubbed: “Is there any way you can get some more light in there? Like a lamp or something?”

“Aren’t you going to bring her into the clinic?”

“Probably,” he said, keeping his voice level. “But not this instant. I want to try something first. And I do need a light, okay? Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah, yeah . . . of course.” She vanished from the kitchen, returning a moment later with a lamp. “Is she going to be okay?”

“I’ll know in a couple of minutes how serious it is.” Holding up his hands like a surgeon, he nodded toward the bag on the floor. “Could you bring that in for me, too? Just put the bag over there and find a place to plug in the lamp. As close to Molly as you can get, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, trying not to panic.

Travis approached the dog carefully as Gabby plugged in the light, noting with some relief that Molly was conscious. He could hear her whimpering, which was normal in a situation like this. Next, he focused on the tubular mass that protruded from her vulva and looked over at the puppies, fairly certain that whelping had occurred within the last half hour, which was good, he thought. Less chance of necrosis . . .

“What now?” she asked.

“Just hold her and whisper to her. I need you to help keep her calm.”

When Gabby was in place, Travis squatted next to the dog, listening as Gabby murmured and whispered to her, their faces close together. Molly’s tongue lapped out, another good sign. He gently checked the uterus, and Molly twitched slightly.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“It’s a uterine prolapse. It means that part of the uterus has turned inside out, and it’s protruding.” He felt the uterus, turning it gently to see if there were any ruptures or necrotic areas. “Were there any problems with the whelping?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t even know it was happening. She’s going to be okay, right?”

Focused on the uterus, he didn’t answer. “Reach into the bag,” he said. “There should be some saline. And I’ll need the jelly, too.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I need to clean the uterus, and then I’m just going to manipulate it a bit. I want to try to manually reduce it, and if we’re lucky, it’ll contract back in on its own. If not, I’ll have to bring her in for surgery. I’d rather avoid that if at all possible.”

Gabby found the saline and the jelly and handed them over. Travis rinsed the uterus, then rinsed it two more times before reaching for the lubricating jelly, hoping it would work.

Gabby couldn’t bear to watch, so she concentrated on Molly, her mouth close to Molly’s ear as she whispered over and over what a good dog she was. Travis stayed quiet, his hand moving rhythmically over the uterus.

She didn’t know how long they were in the garage—it could have been ten minutes or it could have been an hour—but finally, she saw Travis lean back, as if trying to relieve the tension in his shoulders. It was then she noticed that his hands were free.

“Is it over?” she ventured. “Is she all right?”

“Yes and no,” he said. “Her uterus is back in place, and it seemed to contract without any problems, but she needs to go to the clinic. She’s going to need to take it easy for a couple of days while she gets her strength back, and she’ll need some antibiotics and fluids. I’ll have to do an X-ray as well. But if there are no further complications, she should be good as new. What I’m going to do now is back my truck up to the garage. I’ve got some old blankets she can lie on.”

“And it won’t . . . fall back out?”

“It shouldn’t. Like I said, it contracted normally.”

“What about the puppies?”

“We’ll bring them. They need to be with their mama.”

“And that won’t hurt her?”

“It shouldn’t. But that’s why she needs fluids. So the puppies can nurse.”

Gabby felt her shoulders relax; she hadn’t realized how tense they’d become. For the first time, she smiled. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

“You just did.”

After cleaning up, Travis carefully loaded Molly into the truck while Gabby started with the puppies. Once all six were settled, Travis repacked the bag and tossed it onto the front seat. He walked around the truck and opened the driver’s-side door.

“I’ll let you know how it goes,” he said.

“I’m coming.”

“It would be better if she got some rest, and if you’re in the room, that might not happen. She needs to recover. Don’t worry—I’ll take good care of her. I’ll be with her all night. You have my word on that.”

She hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“She’ll be fine. I promise.”

She considered what he’d said, then offered a tremulous smile. “You know, in my line of work, we’re taught never to promise anything. We’re told to say that we’ll do our best.”

“Would you feel better if I didn’t promise?”

“No. But I still think I should come with you.”

“Don’t you have to work tomorrow?”

“Yes. But so do you.”

“True, but this is my job. It’s what I do. And besides, I have a cot. If you came, you’d have to sleep on the floor.”

“You mean you wouldn’t give me the cot?”

He climbed into the truck. “I suppose I could if I had to,” he said, grinning. “But I’m concerned about what your boyfriend would think if you and I spent the night together.”

“How did you know I have a boyfriend?”

He reached for the door. “I didn’t,” he said, sounding faintly disappointed. Then he smiled, recovering. “Let me bring her in, okay? And call me tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it went.”

“Yeah,” she relented. “Okay.”

Travis closed the door, and she heard the engine rattle to a start. He leaned out the window. “Don’t worry,” he said again. “She’s going to be fine.”

He eased toward the road, then turned left. In the distance, he waved at her out the window. Gabby waved in return, though she knew he couldn’t see it, watching the red lights fade as they rounded the corner.

After he left, Gabby wandered to the bedroom and stood in front of the bureau. She’d always known she’d never be the type to stop traffic, but for the first time in ages, she found herself staring into the mirror and wondering what someone besides Kevin thought when he saw her.

Despite her exhaustion and unruly hair, she didn’t look as bad as she feared. The thought pleased her, though she wasn’t sure why. Unaccountably, she recalled the disappointment on Travis’s face when she’d told him about her boyfriend, and she flushed. It wasn’t as if she felt any differently toward Kevin. . . .

She’d certainly been wrong about Travis Parker, wrong about everything from the beginning. He’d been so steady during the emergency. It still amazed her, though she shouldn’t have been surprised. It was his job, after all, she reminded herself.

With that, she decided to call Kevin. He was immediately sympathetic, promising to be there within minutes.

“How’re you holding up?” Kevin asked.

Gabby leaned into him. His arm felt good around her. “Anxious, I guess.”

He pulled her closer, and she could smell him, fresh and clean, as if he’d showered right before coming over. His hair, unkempt and windblown, made him look like a college student.

“I’m glad your neighbor was there,” he said. “Travis, right?”

“Yeah.” She looked over. “Do you know him?”

“Not really,” he said. “We do the insurance for the clinic, but that’s one of the accounts my dad still handles.”

“I thought this was a small town and you knew everyone.”

“It is. But I grew up in Morehead City, and as a kid, I didn’t hang out with anyone from Beaufort. Besides, I think he’s a few years older than me. He was probably off to college by the time I started high school.”

She nodded. In the silence, her thoughts circled back to Travis, his serious expression as he worked on Molly, the quiet assurance in his voice as he explained what was wrong. In the silence, she felt a vague current of guilt, and she leaned in to nuzzle Kevin’s neck. Kevin stroked her shoulder, his touch comforting in its familiarity. “I’m glad you came over,” she whispered. “I really needed you here tonight.”